"Sailors are lads. Sailors are lads.Sailors they make you laugh!"
Before night she was wholly reconciled to the idea that Toby would go to sea. She soon had a dim perception of the fact that it would do him good to go. It would get him away from the atmosphere of the Works, where there seemed to be a lot of stupid larking and work-dodging. Now that he was dismissed she began to realise all this. She was glad he was away from it. She was glad he was going to sea. It would be a complete change. It would do him good. He had been fiddling about too long at the Works, in his overalls and in the grime and oil and general dodginess of the place. The ship would take him about, and show him the way people did things. It would open his eyes and his brains. Electrically, something self-protective within her added the further message: it would keep him out of the way for a time. Sally breathed deeply. An unreadable smile was upon her lips, and no smile at all was in her eyes. Afar off she scented change; but what manner of change she did not as yet recognise. It was her instinct at work, her instinct for turning life to her own advantage. It was an infallible instinct, like that of birds for a coming storm.
It was some weeks before Sally again saw Gaga, and this time he came into the premises of Madame Gala one Saturday morning. Sally had taken something in to Madam, and was waiting her judgment, when one door opened and Gaga came in. He was dressed, as usual, in a morning coat and top hat, and his trouserswere creased to an inconceivable point of accuracy. Besides which, his tailors had been able to do what most tailors cannot achieve; the creases arrived at the precise centre of Gaga's fawn spats. Sally was not such an expert in male clothing to recognise from this that Gaga's tailors were supermen; but she could tell that he looked like a gentleman of leisure. She was the more astonished, therefore, to see him carrying a parcel of some size under his arm. His mother was evidently quite as astonished.
"What on earth's that, Bertie?" she demanded. Gaga looked at her in a timid way.
"Oh—er—it's ... it's a new fertiliser," he said. "I.... I'm going to take it on to the office after lunch. Goodmayes is coming back then. Perrip says it's wonderful stuff, and I want Goodmayes to go into it. We're going into all that matter—good morning, Miss Minto—this afternoon. I.... I think we may be able to get through quite a lot. You see, as it's Saturday, we shan't be interrupted...."
"That will do, Sally," said Madam, gravely and slowly nodding her head in dismissal.
Sally went with regret. She had been interested in the conversation. She had taken it for granted that Gaga did nothing for a living. Now he talked of going to an office, and of two men whose opinions he evidently valued, and of fertiliser; and although his words and his manner were still those of a hesitating man he did not speak as an absolute fool. Sally felt a stir of curiosity. What sort of business was it that he was in? Fertiliser ... wonderful stuff ... something to do with gardening, would it be? As she was closing the door, Sally looked back and saw mother and son standing together. The likeness was remarkable. Both were tall, grey-faced, and slightly stooping. Gaga was weak-looking for aman, and Madam had more severity; but there were such lines upon her face that she looked like an old woman. A sudden realisation shook Sally. As she went back to Miss Summers with an explanation of Madam's deferred judgment she had this sharp new knowledge about Madame Gala.
"Wellshewon't live for ever," thought Sally, definitely.
And then she had recourse to her usual informant, Muriel, and asked her Gaga's business. Muriel did not know. Sally was therefore left to conjecture. She forgot all about Madam and Gaga, for Toby was going to meet her after business on his first leave from the "Florence Drake." She was dressed in her most destructive raiment, had searched the skies for rain, and was watching the clock. So fertilisers went the way of all secondary things, and Toby became her dominating thought. He had become the more splendid by his absence. She imagined him standing in the street below, dressed equally in his best clothes, and looking the finest boy on earth. They were going into Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, and he had promised to take her in a boat on the Serpentine, if one could be hired, and somewhere to tea, and at night to the Marlborough Theatre in Holloway Road. It was worth while to lose him for a time in order to recover a Toby more dear, and so much more extravagant on her behalf. He explained his generosity by the fact that he would be drawing his wages that day. Good to be a sailor, and have your money in a lump like that! Sally thought she would not altogether mind if he remained at sea for a time. He could save, and she could get on; and then they would both be happy, with a house somewhere, and a maid, and everything spick and span. No babies. Sally had taken that to heart, and she appreciated the value of old Perce's advice. A girl who wantedto get on did not need babies to drag her down. She wanted freedom.
As the clock slowly crawled to the hour of liberation all the girls began to put away their things, so that a real busyness was observable in the room. Sally was apparently no more eager than the others, and yet she could hardly keep herself from running to the window to see if Toby was in the street below. Sedately she prepared to leave, walking down the stairs slowly instead of rushing at them as she wished to do. She buttoned her little gloves, and set her hat straight, and made herself appear nonchalant. And that was how it happened that Gaga overtook her at the front door, and stood with her for a moment upon the doorstep.
"Lovely day it is," Gaga said, agreeably. "You going to get away?"
"Away? Oh, no, I'm going home," Sally said brightly. Then, looking at him, she saw that there was nothing to disturb the impression that he was a gentleman of leisure. "Oh Mr. Ga— Mr. Bertram ... you haven't got your parcel!" she cried.
He slapped one hand upon the other, with a most dramatic gesture.
"Idiot!" he exclaimed. "Thank yousomuch, Miss Minto. You've saved my afternoon." And with that, raising his top hat, he went back up the stairs, leaving Sally to congratulate herself upon her memory and her presence of mind. For she knew the rooms would all be locked by Miss Summers before she left.
She looked round for Toby, and saw him, as fine as a bird, upon the opposite path. Crossing over, she took his arm with such pride and delight that Toby, who had been frowning as he greeted her, was almost appeased. She looked so charming in her very pale green dress with the artfully-brimmed hat that he also had looked proudand happy at her first appearance. But Toby had received a shock. Standing there in his dark tweed suit, with a rakish Trilby hat and a fascinating cane, he had felt a fit companion for any girl, and as he was shaven, and his square face was browned with the sun and the sea wind, he had been content. And then Sally, looking like a princess....
"Who the devil's that silly fop?" he demanded, jerking his head.
Sally gave a jump, and a mischievous peep up into Toby's brown face.
"Jealous?" she asked. "That's right: be a man. They're never happy unless they're jealous. That's Gaga. And if you want to know who Gaga is, he's Madam's son. See?"
"Well, he'd better not come fooling around you," growled Toby. "Or he'll get a thick ear. With his top hat and his kid gloves and all."
"Hark at it!" jeered Sally. "Quite the little man! Don't you think he's awfully good-looking, Toby? We're all mad about him. All us girls."
"No, I don't," said Toby, deliberately. "But I expect he's the sort the girls like. Well, he's got a harem there, and no mistake, all fussing round him. Is he there all the time?"
"No. Toby, what's fertilisers?" Sally's curiosity had been revived. "Don't you know? Oh, shut up about Gaga. Anybody'd think he was a devil. He isn't. He's soppy. He wouldn't dare to make love to any of us girls. If I was to look at him he'd run away."
"Yes," said Toby, grimly. "I see he didn't like you looking at him."
"Well, I'll tell you something else, Toby," added Sally, with a persuasively dry candour. "If Madam was to see me looking at him I should get the sack—spiff! See?"
Toby was impressed. More, he was silenced. They spent a happy afternoon and evening, with no further reference to Gaga. Nor did Sally think of Gaga during the whole of the weekend. He might have been mixed and pounded with his own fertiliser for all she cared. For Sally had Toby.
One night Miss Summers and Sally were working late upon a "rush job," and Madam was also in her room. The girls had all gone; but Sally had been chosen by Miss Summers to help her, and Sally was always ready to do this because it meant a small addition to her weekly money. Madam was doing her books, and Gaga was helping her. Sally was sewing busily—beautiful fine work that caused Miss Summers to purr and lick her lips with relish;—and as they worked they exchanged remarks which would have been impossible if they had not been alone. Miss Summers always spoke of the business, which absorbed her, and Sally gleaned innumerable details in this way, without seeming to be doing such a thing. She, on her side, gave Miss Summers a low-toned picture of her own life, concentrating upon domestic circumstances and enhancing Miss Summers' respect for her bravery and her willingness. When they had been silent once for a little while, and Sally had finished the first of her difficult and gratifying tasks, Sally fell into thought, and at last said to Miss Summers:
"Wish I knew about accounts. I don't know anything. Is it hard to learn?"
Miss Summers shook her plump face, and rubbed the tip of her nose with the back of her hand.
"No," she reassuringly said. "It's easy. You know what twice one are? Well, that's all it is. You put downon one side how much you charged, and when you get the money you put it down on the other side, and draw a line to show they balance. And every month or every quarter you go through your books, and see who hasn't paid; and if it isn't anybody special you send them a fresh account. And if it's a real lady you don't worry her. You have to know who's who in a business like this. That's the chief thing."
"Does Gaga—Mr. Bertram know who's who?"
"No!" Miss Summers's tone was conclusive. "But his mother tells him who to write to, or who to send an account to, and he knows book-keeping, and how much is at the bank; and he draws cheques for her to sign, and that sort of thing. Between you and me, Sally—mind, this isquitebetween ourselves,—I don't think Mr. Bertram's got a very good head for figures. You have to be a bit smarter than he is. Of course, he's very kind and good-looking; but if I wanted good sound common sense I wouldn't go to him. Not a good head for figures. He's not very sharp. Now Madam's as sharp as a needle. It's funny how a really sharp woman sometimes has a son who's—well, not so sharp...."
"Would you sayIwas sharp?" asked Sally innocently.
"Like a knife," declared Miss Summers, with a quick dart of her feline eyes.
"Really?" Sally was eager. She gave a little chuckle of pleasure at such emphatic praise.
"You'd be able to do the books, but you're better where you are. When you've been here another three months, Sally, you'll be getting more money. It isn't only that you're a good worker, and quick, but you've got more sense than the other girls. I oughtn't to say this to you. I don't generally praise the girls here. But if you want to get on, you've only got to stay where you are. You'll find Madam appreciates you. And so do I."
"You've been awfully good to me," murmured Sally, with downcast eyes. "I'm not just saying that, Miss Summers; I mean it, every word. When I came here I didn't know anything; and now I don't know a lot; but...." She gave a small cluck of her tongue, and a smile to show how much she had learned. It was true. And she was even learning to speak better, through listening to Madam and Miss Summers and at times a customer; and she had enough sense to avoid the extravagant refinements of Nosey. Presently she resumed: "Miss Summers, what does Mr. Bertram do? He's got a business of his own, hasn't he?"
Miss Summers looked across at the door leading to Madam's room, and lowered her voice.
"It's only something Madam put him into. It's a business all to do with farms."
"Farms?" Sally laughed. "Well,hedoesn't look much like a farmer."
"No, it isn't exactly farms; but chemical things they use on farms. Now you see there's the soil." Sally nodded, so deeply interested that she ceased her work. "Some soil's good for growing things, and some isn't. Well, when a soil's not good the farmers mix stuff with it, to make it better."
"I know," cried Sally, joyously. "Fertiliser."
"Yes. And then from the good soil they'll get a crop early in the year, and then, by using stuff, they'll get another crop later. All that sort of thing. And if cows have the mange, or the rickets, or whatever it is cows have, Mr. Bertram's got something to give them. D'you see what I mean? And all sorts of chemical things. Stuff to kill weeds, stuff to give chickens to make them have bigger eggs.... He's got an inventor, and a manager, and others who are interested in the business, and he's got a share, and he goes to the office and goes about thecountry sometimes." Miss Summers screwed up her nose and lips, looking very like an old pussy, and in a whisper added: "Doesn't really do very much." She put her finger to her lips at that, and Sally, resuming her work, reassured her by a glance. "Of course," said Miss Summers, "he's very agreeable, and good-looking, and he's got plenty of money."
Money! Sally's eyelids flickered. She gave a charming grin.
"Wish I'd got plenty money," she said.
"You will have," answered Miss Summers, confidently. "Don't fret. Your time's coming. You're young yet, and all sorts of things might happen to you."
Sally made no response. She fell into silence for a time. She had learnt with the greatest interest about Gaga's business, and about the books. She learned a great deal from Miss Summers, whom she had grown to like very much. She was by no means insensitive to kindness, although she was not sentimental over it. And, as she thought, she came round again to the two workers in the next room.
"D'you think Madam will live long?" she unexpectedly asked.
Within half an hour the job was finished, and Miss Summers took it in to Madam. She closed the door after her, and so Sally could not hear what was said. She stood up, stretching her arms, and looking down into the street, for it was barely growing dusk, and she could see a few men and women walking along in either direction. She yawned slightly, raising her hand to her mouth, her muscles stiff. And as she stood thus she heard the door opened and closed again, and, still yawning, said sleepily:
"Oo, I'msotired!"
"Are you?" she heard behind her, in a very soft and sympathetic voice. Sally wheeled.
"I thought it was Miss Summers," she cried.
Gaga stood there smiling shyly, and looking at her with his appealing eyes. In this light he looked very handsome, and Sally felt almost sorry to see that he also looked tired. His face was quite grey, and his movements were those of an exceedingly nervous person who would always shrink from roughness.
"I'm so sorry you should have had to work so late," he said.
"Oo, it's nothing," cried Sally. "Do me good. If I was at home I should only be working there," she added, explanatorily. "Work, work, work."
"Don't you ever get any fun?" asked Gaga, timidly. "I mean, go out, or anything?"
Sally shook her head. She was silhouetted against the light.
"No," she told him. "Not often." It was strange how refined her voice automatically became when she was talking to Gaga. She was altogether restrained. "You can't if you've got to earn your own living. And have to get here early in the morning."
Gaga hesitated, half turned away, came back.
"I'm very sorry," he said, in his gentle, weak way. "Don't you like it? I mean going out. Or is it just that you don't get the chance? Poor little girl. Er— I'm sorry. Er—it's a beautiful night, isn't it?"
"Lovely," agreed Sally. "I'm going to walk home."
He considered that. He did not seem to have anything more to say. Sally moved to her place, and mechanically put away her scissors and thimble. She was still in her pinafore, and she could not take that off and roll it up while Gage was in the room. So they stood there, separated by several yards. He took out a cigarette case, and lighted a cigarette, throwing the match under the long table at the side of the room.
"Yes," he said reflectively. "Are you going to have dinner first?"
"Me?" laughed Sally. She shook her head. "When I get home. If I had dinner in London it would take all my wages, and more, at a single go." She laughed again, but not woundingly.
Gaga looked at his shoes, again at Sally, again at his shoes.
"Look here," he blurted out, "I wish you'd...."
Sally's ears were pricked; but they heard only the opening of the door of Madam's room as Miss Summers returned. Both Sally and Gaga turned away, as if in slight chagrin. Then Gaga backed out of the workroom. The conversation was over. It was time to go home. Slowly Sally removed her pinafore and rolled it, thinking rapidly. Miss Summers was so pleased at Madam's satisfaction with the dress that she was beaming and purring and rubbing her hands together. She nodded benevolently at Sally.
"Well, you get off, Sally," she said, in a full tone of delight. "It's quite all right. Madam's very pleased with the dress. Don't hang about now, but get home to your supper. You've been a very good girl."
Sally put on her hat.
"Good night, Miss Summers." And as she passed the door of Madam's room she gave a little silent nod towards it, and a little grimace also. She was out upon the stairs. She was out of doors. And as she walked along she heard rapid footsteps behind her, shrank a little, and looked up to see Gaga standing beside her, quite breathless, as if with a hurried journey.
"Er— Miss Minto," he panted. "I'm sorry.... I ... will you take these? Er—good night."
He raised his hat, and went into the building, leaving Sally mutely clasping a box of chocolates which he had thrust into her hand. She looked round, but he had disappeared, and she began to march homeward, still clasping the chocolates. Only when she was in Regent Street with her treasure did Sally dare to laugh. Then the whole scene came back to her so vividly that she could control her mirth no longer, but stared, shaking, into a shop window. He must have hurried out to buy the chocolates after being interrupted by Miss Summers.
"My!" she whispered to herself. "My!" For a time that was all she could say; but as she resumed her journey she exclaimed: "Chocolates! He never gave Rose anything at all. Ee! He was going to ask me to dinner. Wish he had! He didn't dare! My word, he hasn't half got a crush on me! Old Gaga!" She was consumed with delighted laughter, that made her break into smiles at intervals during the whole of the dismal walk which followed.
"Here, have a chocolate, ma," said Sally. Mrs. Minto was sitting beside the empty grate reading, with the aid of a magnifying glass, a piece of newspaper which had been wrapped around Sally's mended shoes. She looked very frail and meagre, but she was very much better than she had been, and but for the ugliness of the room and the drabness of her clothes she would not have appeared miserable. She was, in fact, a pathetic figure; but thanks to Sally they were no longer starving, or in immediate danger of it.
"Chocolates!" cried Mrs. Minto. Then, sternly and suspiciously, she said in her weak voice of warning, "Where did you getthemfrom, Sally?"
"Won 'em in a raffle," declared Sally.
"Oo, gambling!" reproved Mrs. Minto. "It's very wrong of young girls——"
"Fiddlesticks! They're good chocolates, too," said Sally. "Don't make yourself sick. It's a nuisance. Besides, I want some myself. Iamhungry. I've been working all the evening."
"Working!" grumbled her mother, incredulously.
"Well.... I ...have!" asserted Sally. "Perhaps you'd like me to get Miss Summers to give me a certificate? You'll see. I shall have a bit more money at the end of the week. Then you'll rub your eyes. You'll apologise—I don't think! No, I'm a bad girl, wasting my time gadding about. You never think of that when you get the money, or the money if I'm late."
"Hush! Hush!" begged her mother. "I never said you was a bad girl. You're a very good girl. But when you bring home a box of chocolates at this hour—nine o'clock, and past—and say you won them in a raffle, and you've been working—well!"
"What's that you're reading?" asked Sally, pointing to the small print.
Mrs. Minto straightened the sheet of newspaper, and held it up to the light.
"It's an old paper," she said. "A trial."
"Lor! Murder?" Sally almost left her supper. "What's it all about?"
"Well ... oo, he must a been a wicked wretch. He poisoned the old lady. He'd robbed her before he did it. Took all her money to give her an annuity, and then he poisoned her."
"Poison! Whew! What sort of poison?"
"Flypapers, it was. Not them sticky ones, but the brown, what you put in water. Got arsenic in them, they have."
"What's arsenic?"
Mrs. Minto looked over her magnifying glass at Sally in a bewildered way.
"I don't know. It's poison. I never poisoned anybody. Not that I know of."
"No," agreed Sally. She thought to herself: "She ought to have poisoned dad. All of us." Melancholy seized her, a dreadful passing fit of depression. Suddenly she longed for Toby. Aloud, she proceeded, more seriously: "If it's in the flypapers, why don't we all get poisoned, ma?"
"Well, it seems he soaked the papers, and drained off the water, with the poison in it, and mixed it with her food—beef tea, and that.Shenever noticed anything. She had awful pains, and diarrhœa, and was sick; and then she died, poor thing."
"Hn," said Sally, reaching out for the chocolates. "I'll read it. I like murders."
"Hush!" cried Mrs. Minto, in horror. "Read them—yes; but say you like murders! What wicked people there are in the world, to be sure. I hope they hanged him."
"Doesn't it say?" mumbled Sally, dealing with a chocolate with caramel inside it.
"It's torn across. It's what I got your shoes in, Sally. It's a.... It's 'Stories of Famous Trials,' in the Weekly Something.... I can't see what it is."
For the next quarter of an hour Sally ate chocolates and read about the trial of Seddon for murdering Miss Barrow.
"Miss Barrow!" she exclaimed. "Wonder if she was any relation to old Perce! I'll ask Mrs. Perce about it. Oo—fancy Tollington Park! Quite near us in Hornsey Road."
Mrs. Minto shuddered, and looked furtively at theclock, longing for her bedtime. Sally caught the glance, shut up the box of chocolates, and folded the paper.
"You going to work?" asked her mother.
"Wash my hair."
"You're always washing ...washing, you call it!" cried Mrs. Minto.
Sally ignored the sneer, and proceeded to her occupation. There was a silence. Mrs. Minto yawned. She looked at Sally making her preparations, and into her face came a watchful anxiety that was mingled with profound esteem. There was achicabout her girl that made Mrs. Minto assume this expression quite often, and Sally knew it. She knew it now, and was elaborately unconscious of it. As she waited for the kettle and moved the lamp so that it would illumine the washstand, she whistled to show how blind she was to any sign of emotion from her mother. When the whistle was unavailing, she said sharply:
"Don't you think this is a pretty frock, ma?"
Mrs. Minto sighed heavily, and pulled herself up out of her chair.
"Fartoopretty, if you ask me," she said. "Looks to me fast." She was full of concern, and did not try to hide it from Sally.
"Oo!" cried Sally. "Youarestupid, ma!" And with that she whipped the dress over her head and revealed the fact that she wore no petticoat. Her mother was the more outraged.
Sally began to sing.
"'When you and I go down the love path together,Stars shall be shining and the night so fair.'"
"Well, it's a good thing nobody else sees you like that," sniffed her mother, rebukingly. "I don't know what theywouldthink!"
Sally forebore to make the obvious retort. Her mother prepared for bed.
For the next fortnight Sally did not see Gaga, and only at the end of the period did she learn that he had been away from London on business. This was one of the journeys of which Miss Summers had spoken, to the agricultural districts. Sally could not discover whether Gaga actually acted as traveller for his own firm; but she gathered that he found it useful to see how the country was behaving itself in the matter of agriculture. She suspected also that he went away for his health. She speculated as to what he looked like with his handsome coat off, and recalled wrists that could have been spanned with ease by her own small fingers. In contrast, when she saw Toby, she saw with swelling pride how big his hands were, and felt his already increased muscles. Once he swung her clear from the ground with one arm, so that her feet kicked against his leg in helplessness. He was getting stronger and stouter than ever, and his eyes were clear and his skin tanned and smoothed by the breeze. She adored him. He wanted her to go away with him during one of his leaves; but Sally did not dare to go, because her mother had been specially grumbling and suspicious. So they saw each other rarely for the rest of the year, and their meetings became the more precious for that reason.
Soon after Gaga returned, Madam went away. She had had no holiday, and she had fallen ill, with headaches and bilious attacks and a threat of jaundice. So it happened that Gaga came each day to the dressmaking establishment and took charge of the cash and the accounts, while Miss Summers and Miss Rapson interviewed any customers who came about dresses. Miss Rapson, a tall,thin, dark woman, was in another room, with eight girls under her; but Miss Summers was really in charge while Madam was away, because she understood the whole business, and was a more experienced woman than Miss Rapson. Sally had hardly ever seen Miss Rapson until this time, so much did she keep to her own room; but now, when the two who were in charge had to arrange their work together, there was more interchange. Sally had often to go into the other room with messages or work, and she came to understand very quickly what went on there. Miss Rapson was strict, and rather disagreeable. Her girls were like mice, unless she was absent; and her sallow face gave the clue to her disagreeableness. She did not like Sally at all, because she was jealous of her. Sally was quick to perceive this, but she did not retaliate. She formed her own cool conclusions about Miss Rapson. She understood the complexion, and she was more concerned with the details of the work than with anything else. Besides, she was in a strong position. She had nothing to fear from Miss Rapson. She soon recognised that she had not much to learn from her, either. Miss Rapson was forty, angular, shortsighted. She was inclined to be fussy and self-important and lacking in self-reliance. If anything went wrong she lost first her head and then her temper. "Hysterics!" thought Sally, cruelly. And Miss Rapson was very anxious indeed to have the reversion of Miss Summers' place of trust. She had set her heart upon it, although she knew that as Miss Summers was no older than herself, and as little likely to marry, she might fruitlessly wait a lifetime. Anything which suggested a possible rival, even though it might only be in the distant future, was a cause of sleeplessness to her, and after a sleepless night, when all possible causes of grief, summoned from memory and the inventions of her own unquiet spirit, came into herhead, Miss Rapson was one of the most insufferable women in the dressmaking. "If I was boss here," thought Sally, "and I had any trouble with her, she'd go like a shot. Easily get someone inherplace." But she did not show that she was thinking this. She said: "Yes, Miss Rapson. No, Miss Rapson. I'll tell Miss Summers, Miss Rapson," in the most respectful way. It was Miss Rapson who first suspiciously sounded Miss Summers about Sally. "Do you think she'sdeep?" she asked.
Now that Miss Summers had more to do, Sally was very useful to her. Also, Sally came to admire Miss Summers more than ever. She might be funny, with her eternally cold nose and her cat-like appearance, but she was an extraordinarily capable woman. She rose to emergencies, which is the sign of essential greatness. Not once did Sally see Miss Summers lose her nerve. True, there was no need for diplomacy or large generalship; but when work has to be arranged so that all customers are satisfied, not only with its quality but with the promptness of its delivery, a good deal of skill and management is required. It was forthcoming; and Sally was at hand to give important aid. The weak spot in the government of the business seemed to be Gaga, who betrayed incessant vacillation, and came in so often to consult Miss Summers that she became quite ruffled and indignant with him. "Such nonsense!" she would say to Sally. "A grown up man like that asking such silly questions. Why agirlwould do it better." She had all the capable woman's contempt for the average member of her own sex. "Girls!" she would sniff. Shrewdly, Sally watched the comedy; but for all her shrewdness she never quite understood the cause of Gaga's weakness. It was that Madam had insisted upon early obedience in days when Gaga's precocious ill-health made him pliable; and a docile child becomes a tractable boy and finally aman who needs constant guidance. Sally only saw the last stage. She nodded grimly to herself one day. "Wants somebody to look after him," she said. "Somebody to manage him." With one of her unerring supplements she added confidently: "I could manage him. And look after him, too, for that matter. Poor lamb!"
The extra work kept Miss Summers and Miss Rapson late almost every evening, and Sally also stayed, so that in the evenings she often saw Gaga. She even, once or twice, when Miss Summers had gone to consult Miss Rapson (who stood upon her dignity and kept to her own room), sought pretexts for going into the room where Gaga was. She went in to look at the Directory, or she pretended that she had supposed Miss Summers with him; and on these occasions she stood at the door, and talked, until Miss Summers' imminent return made her fly innocently back to her seat. She enjoyed observing Gaga's pleasure, and even excitement, at her approach. It gratified her naughty vanity and her impulse to the exploitation of others. One evening when she had thus stolen five minutes, she found Gaga ruffling his hair over an account, and at his great sigh of bewilderment she turned from the book she was needlessly consulting.
"Got a headache, Mr. Bertram?" she timidly and commiseratingly asked.
Gaga looked up at her gratefully, a comic expression of dismay upon his face. The books lay before him upon the table, and an account had been transferred from one to another. A litter of papers was also there. He was in the last stages of perplexity.
"No," he said. "It's this account. I can't make it out. See if you can."
Sally went and stood close to him, leaning over to examine the books, so that his shoulder touched her side. She knew that the contact thrilled him, and for an instantwas so occupied with the recognition that she could not collect her thoughts. He had been adding up in pencil on a sheet of paper the two series of entries, and there was a discrepancy between them. Sally checked his figures: there seemed nothing wrong with them. She herself added the two series of entries. Then, with a pointed finger she counted the entries. One of them had been omitted. Another examination showed which of them it was. She had solved his mystification. Her small forefinger pointed to that entry which accounted for the difference in the two casts. Gaga looked up at her in wondering admiration.
"What a marvellous girl you are!" he impulsively ejaculated. "I've been worrying over this for ten minutes. Thank you. Er—thank you."
Still she did not immediately leave him, and he made no attempt to move. It would have been the easiest thing for Gaga to encircle her with his arm, but he did not do so. At last Sally started away.
"I must go," she said breathlessly.
"Thank you, Miss Minto. I'm.... I'm so much ... obliged," stammered Gaga. She was at the door. "Oh, Miss Minto...." Sally turned, a mischievous expectancy upon her face. "Er...." Gaga swallowed. A faint colour rose to his grey cheeks. "I say, I wish you'd come out to dinner with me. I...."
"Oh, Mr. Bertram," murmured Sally. "It's very kind of you. I...."
"Docome. I'm ... so much obliged to you, you know. I mean, I...."
Sally gave a quick nod. She peeped to see that Miss Summers had not returned.
"Well, you see," she said. Then: "All right, I will. Thank you very much."
"To-night? In half an hour? Splendid. I'll be atthe corner of the street. Just outside that big corner place. Thank you. That'll be fine." He was jubilant. Sally went back to her place with her mouth puckered into a curious smile that nobody could have understood. She felt that she had embarked at last upon the inevitable adventure with Gaga, and her sensation for the moment was one of pure triumph. A moment later, triumph was suffused with a faint derision. She thought how easy it was to handle Gaga. She felt how easy, how temptingly easy, it would be always to handle him. But all the same she was rather excited. It was the first time she had been out to dinner with a man. She knew he would look handsome and like a gentleman; she knew he would have plenty of money. She was glad to think that she was wearing her newest frock, the smartest she had. Well, she demanded of herself, why not? It'll please him, or he wouldn't have asked me! Would they have wine to drink? she wondered. A momentary self-distrust seized her in the matter of table-manners; but she shook it off. She would watch what Gaga did. She mustn't drink too much. She must mind her step. Then, irresistibly: "What a lark!" murmured Sally. She was very demure upon Miss Summers' return, and listened with equanimity to a few remarks made by Miss Summers as to the capacity of Miss Rapson. In reality her thoughts were occupied with speculations as to the entertainment which lay ahead. So Gaga had never given Rose anything; more fool Rose! Rose! She didn't know how to manage a man! She didn't know anything at all. She had been born pretty, and she thought that was all you had to do. Sally had not been born pretty; she had had to fight against physical disadvantages. It had taught her a great deal. It had taught her the art of tactics. Sally was very much wiser than she had been a year earlier. She had learnt immeasurably from her contact withToby. She had kept her eyes open. She was unscrupulous. It was of no use to be scrupulous in this world; you lost all the fun of the fair. Sally was hilarious at her own irreverent unscrupulousness.
Half an hour later she slipped out, and along the street Gaga was waiting. He raised his hat—a thing Toby would never have done if he had left her so recently—and fell into step beside her. Sally shot a bright eye full of assurance. As Gaga showed himself nervous, so her assurance increased.
"Where would you like to go?" asked Gaga.
"Oo, you know better than ... I do," answered Sally, meekly. He stopped for a moment; then turned eastward; then stopped afresh, hesitating until Sally slightly frowned.
"Yes, we'll go to the Singe d'Or," he explained. "Unless you.... No, we'll go to the Rezzonico. You'd like to have music, I expect. You know, it's awfully good of you to come. I've wanted to talk to you ever since I heard you sing so beautifully."
The Love Path! Sally gave a start. What had Mrs. Perce said! Sally might not have a fortune in her voice, she mischievously thought; but at least she had a dinner! Well, master Toby; and what did he think of that, if you please?
"I'm very fond of music," she said, glibly.
"I could tell...." There was a pause. "Do you ... do you sing much?"
"No, not much." Sally was speaking like a lady. "Ai ... a ... don't get very much taime. I'm very fond of. It's so ... it's so...." She was rather lost for a phrase that should sound well.
"Quite, quite," agreed Gaga, eagerly.
"I wish I could play," Sally hurried to say, feeling that she had failed in effectiveness. He was loud in protestagainst her modesty. "Well, I mean, I've never—well, hardly ever—had any lessons. No, nor my voice. It's just ear. Mrs. P—— a friend of maine says I've got a very quick ear." Every now and then Sally was betrayed into Nosey-like refinement. She fought against it from an instinctive feeling that it was meretricious. But at the same time she was speaking with instinctive care, so as to avoid Cockney phrases, and pronunciations, and tones. She wanted him to think her—something that she called "nice." They walked the length of Regent Street, chatting thus; and at last reached the gilded Rezzonico, where there were liveried men who seized Gaga's hat and stick, and maîtres d'hôtel who hurried them this way and that in search of a table in the crowded, din-filled room. The walls were covered with enormous mirrors which were surrounded by gaudy mouldings. Tables were everywhere, and all appeared to be occupied. Men and women in evening dress, men and women in morning clothes, some of the women painted, others ordinary respectable members of the bourgeoisie, were sitting and dining and smoking and chattering loudly. Glasses, cigarettes, bottles, all sorts of dishes, strewn upon the tables, caught Sally's bewildered eye. Above all, a scratching orchestra rasped out a selection from one of Verdi's operas. A huge unmanageable noise of talk and laughter swelled the torrent of sound. Deafened, her nerve destroyed, Sally timidly followed the apparently aimless wanderings of Gaga and the maîtres d'hôtel, her shoulders stiff with self-consciousness in face of so many staring eyes and well-fed, well-dressed creatures; and at last they found a table. It was a bad table, in the middle of the room, near the band and the cash desk and a sort of sideboard into which bottles were ceaselessly dumped. A very old waiter, with white side whiskers like those of the late Emperor Franz Josef, very foreign and thereforeparticularly liable to misconstrue Gaga's stammered orders, served them with hors d'oeuvres, slashing down upon Sally's plate inconceivable mixtures of white and red and green fragments; and then hurried away as fast as his bunions allowed. Gaga was left to choose the wine, which he managed to do after many consultations with Sally and the waiter, and many changes of mind upon his own account. Sally riddled all his uncertainties with a merciless eye. He apparently knew a wine-list when he saw one; but his nervousness was so palpable that she was inclined even to suspect his knowledge. It was an injustice. She soon realised that the band was too noisy for talk, and the sideboard too shattering even for coherent thought. She knew, in fact, at the first encounter, that this was a bad table, and that bad tables were to be avoided by any expert eye. She knew the waiter was a bad waiter, and that Gaga was a bad host. She had her first lesson in the art of dining out at a restaurant.
But she dined! She drank more wine than she had intended to do, and it went to her head. She laughed, and became talkative, forgetting her refined accent, and thereby enjoying herself very much more than she would otherwise have done, and becoming a good and lively companion for the meal. Gaga could not respond to her talk, because it quickly became evident that, with all the good will in the world, he could not talk; but as the wine reached his head also he began to laugh at her remarks, and to look at her with such an expression of adoration in his chocolate eyes that Sally grew more and more at ease and more and more familiar with the passing of each minute, and the increasing effect of the wine she had taken. She sparkled, less in her speech than in her exhilarated and exhilarating manner. She was all nerves, all dancing coquettry.
"Don'tlook at me like that!" she pleaded, archly.Gaga's eyes glowed, and his mouth was stretched with laughing. "Make me feel as if...."
"How do I look at you? How does it make you feel?" asked Gaga with that kind of persistent seriousness with which a man talks to a pretty girl when he has drunk enough wine. "Tell me, Sally, how does it make you feel, Sally?" He reached his hand across the table, and laid it upon hers. "I mean, Sally.... I mean, if it makes you feel.... I'm sorry, d'you see? I look at you as I feel. I don't know how I look at you. I look at you...."
Gaga was not at all drunk; he was merely sententious and sentimental. Sally darted a roguish eye, first round her, and then at Gaga, enjoying very specially this stage of the meal. It was all fun to her, all flattering to her vanity, all a part of the noise and excitement and well-being that was making her spirits mount. She allowed her hand to remain under his for a moment; then tried to draw it away; then pinched his thumb gently and recovered her liberty. Gaga was unlike Toby. He had not the assurance of the physically vigorous. He was gentle, mild, stammering, and ineffective. But he was giving Sally a glorious evening's entertainment. At one step they had overleapt all that separated them, and were friends. He began to tell her, unasked, about his business, about his mother, about everything.
"My mother's a wonderful woman," he said. "Wonderful! She's made that business with her own hands. She began in a small way, and the business is almost out of her control. Not quite; but.... She's done it all herself. All herself. Wonderful woman. And yet, you know, Sally; she's hard. I wonder if you understand what I mean? She's always been a good mother to me. I wish I couldtellyou how good. There's the business I'm in, for example. But Sally.... I'm not a businessman.... If I had somebody to do the business side, I've got.... I can design dresses. That's what I'm good at. She knows. She lets me design them, sometimes. I've got a touch, d'you see? But she's hard. She's so afraid of anybody meddling. She's made that business herself, and she won't let anybody else touch it. She has me to help her with the accounts; but, as I say, I'm not a business man. She thinks I'm a fool.Youdon't think I'm a fool, do you, Sally?"
"Me? You?" cried Sally, looking at him guilelessly. "Mr. Bertram!"
"She's very ill, Sally. Very ill indeed. I can see it. You know, youfeelsomething. You see her keeping on and keeping on. Something's bound to go, sooner or later. It worries me, Sally. It worries me." From his long and unusually consecutive speech, Gaga fell into a silence. Meaninglessly, he repeated: "It worries me. That's one reason I asked you to come out to-night, Sally. I'm worried."
"Poor man!" murmured Sally.
"You know, you're kind, Sally. I can see your little bright eyes shining; and they make me ... they make me...." He was once again the old, incoherent Gaga, fingering his unused cheese knife and looking at her with an expression of pathetic helplessness that made Sally wary lest she should betray amusement. "I feel you understand. You're not very old, Sally; but I feel you understand. And.... I've always felt that. You're such a wonderful little girl. I mean...." He broke off with a gesture of vague despair of his power to say what he actually did mean. "I feel you can help me."
"Can I?" asked Sally, swiftly. "I'd love to."
"Would you really?" Gaga's tone was a fresh one, one of hope and light.
"Course I would," responded Sally. Already she wasaware of practical advantages. Her heightened spirits were sobered immediately. But her face did not betray this. Her face continued the demure face of a young girl, not from any artfulness, but because she was in fact a demure young girl, and her hidden mental calculations did not yet show in her habitual expression.
"You'll be friends with me?" Gaga said, as though he asked a great favour.
"If you'll let me," answered Sally, as though she conferred one.
The movement of hands was almost simultaneous, but it began with Sally. Gaga clasped her left one in his right. Only for a minute. Then Sally could not resist a giggle, and the compact was unsignalised. They talked further, Sally once again in a state of delight, and Gaga inclined to be repetitious. And then, as it was nine o'clock, Sally said she must go. He saw her to her omnibus, and they parted as friends. From her seat inside, as the bus moved off, Sally waved to him; and afterwards settled down to the journey, full of memories and reflections of a curious and enchanting character. Not of Gaga were these reflections, save with an occasionally frowning brow of doubt; but of the remarkable vista which had been opened by his demand for friendship and help. An excited recollection of the lights and the mirrors and the overwhelming noise of the restaurant intoxicated her afresh. Her whole face was shining with excitement. She smiled to herself, occupied with such a mixture of sensations and imaginings that at one moment she wondered whether she was Sally Minto at all, and whether some magician had not changed that Sally for a new creature born to spend her days in gaudy restaurants and among all the noise and luxury of such a life as she had led this evening for an hour and a half.
One moment at home was enough to convince Sallythat no magician had been at work. It was the same squalid house, and the same squalid room that she reached after the splendour of her dinner. And it was the same fretful mother who complained of her lateness and chided her for the dangers she ran in being about the streets so late. Sally made no answer. She looked in the mirror at the dilated pupils of her glowing eyes, and at her flushed cheeks and laughing lips; and her heart first sank and then violently rebelled against the contrast of this hideous place with the light and colour she had left. She was a rebel. The contrast was too great. How could she live in a room like this? How could anybody live? It was not life at all, but a mere grovelling. And Sally had tasted something that thrilled her. She had come into contact with a life resembling the life led by those who travelled in the motor broughams she so much admired. She was ravenous for such a life. Her natural arrogance was roused and inflamed by the comparison she so instinctively made between her natural surroundings and those to which she felt she was entitled by her capacities. She thought with contempt of the other girls at Madame Gala's. The wine she had drunk, the noises she had heard, mounted higher. She was primed with conceit and excitement. Hitherto she had only determined by ambition to use the world and attain comfort and success. Now she felt thepowerto attain this success. She could not experience the feeling without despising every other feeling. She looked round the room in scorn—at the dull, shabby bed, and the meagre furniture, and at the little old woman who sat by the empty fireplace with so miserable an air of confirmed poverty. She looked higher, at Miss Jubb, and saw afresh the stupid incompetence of such a creature. Even old Perce and Mrs. Perce led in her new vision a life that was good enough for them, but not good enough forSally. There was a better way, and Sally would not rest until she had secured that way. And she had the opportunity opening to her. Gaga had shown her as much. With the vehement exaggeration of youth that is still half-childhood, Sally saw her own genius. She felt that the world was already in her grasp. She felt like a financier before a coup. She felt like a commander who sees the enemy waver. For this night triumph seemed at hand, through some means which the heat of her brain did not allow her to analyse, but only to relish with exultation.
In the morning Sally had a heavy head as the result of her unusual entertainment, and she awoke to a sense of disillusion. The room was the same ugly room, but her dreams had fled. So must Cinderella have felt upon awaking after her first ball. The colours had faded; the rapturous consciousness of power had died in the night. Sally felt a little girl once more, younger and more impotent than she had been for months. The walk to Regent Street restored her. She once again imagined herself into the talk with Gaga; she stressed his offer of friendship and his plea for help. It would be all right; itwasall right. She had made no mistake. Only, she was not as carelessly happy as she had been in the first realisation. She had recognised that the battle was not yet won, and that much had still to be done before she could claim the victory which last night had seemed in her hands. At all events, hatred of her little ugly home was undiminished. She felt horror of it.
Arrived at the work room, Sally saw it in a new light. She was permanently changed. The girls had become nothing; even Miss Summers had become a very good sort of woman, but subtly inferior. There was not oneof the girls who could help Gaga as she was going to do; not one of them who could earn the advantages which Sally was going to reap. She settled almost with impatience to work which last night had been left unfinished. All the time that she was engaged upon it her thoughts were with other prospects, other deliberate intentions. She was restless and uneasy—first of all until she had seen Gaga and gauged her effect upon him in the morning's grey, finally because another secret conflict was going on beneath her attention. She did not understand what she was feeling, and this made her the more easily exasperated when cotton knotted or a sudden noise made her head throb. "I'm out of sorts," she thought. She tried to laugh in saying: "The morning after the night before." Her malaise was something more than that.
Gaga came into the room during the morning, haggard and anxious-looking. The lines in his pallid face were emphasised; his eyes had a faintly yellowish tinge like the white of a stale egg. In shooting her first lightning observation of him Sally clicked "Bilious." There was a little smile between them, and Gaga went out of the room again, languid and indifferent to everything that was occurring round him. Sally had an impulse to find some reason for going into his room, but she did not dare to go. She sewed busily. Perhaps she would see him later. She peeped into the room at lunch-time, but he was not there, and in the afternoon she heard from Miss Summers that he was unwell, and would not be coming back that day. She heard the news with relief; but also with sudden fright. If—if—if he should have become afraid of her! If he should have repented! If, instead of allowing her to help and to benefit, Gaga should become her enemy! Men were so strange in the way they behaved to girls—so suspicious and funny and brusque—that anything might have happened in Gaga's mind.Sally recollected herself. This mood was a bad mood; any loss of self-confidence was with her a sign of temporary ill-health. She magnificently recovered her natural conceitedness. She was Sally.
In the evening she went home early, to her mother's interest and pleasure; but there was nothing to do at home and the atmosphere was insufferable. It drove her forth, and she walked in the twilight, longing for Toby to be with her. He would not have understood all she was thinking—he would angrily have hated most of it—but his company would have distracted her mind and occupied her attention. She thought of Toby at sea on this beautiful evening, with the stars pale in an opal sky; and she could see him standing upon the deck of the "Florence Drake" in his blue jersey without a hat, with the breeze playing on his crisp hair and his brown face. A yearning for Toby filled her. Tears started to her eyes. She loved him, she felt, more than she had ever done: she needed him with her, not to understand her, but to brace her with the support of his strong arms. Sally dried her eyes and blew her nose. "Here!" she said to herself. "Stop it! I'm getting soppy!"
She presently passed the ugly building of a Board School, not the one which she had attended, but one nearer her present home. Outside it, and within the railings protecting the asphalted playground from the footpath, was a notice-board upon which was pasted a bill advertising the evening classes which would be held there during the Autumn Session. Idly, Sally stopped to read down the list of subjects—and the first that caught her eye, of course, was dressmaking. She gave a sniff. Funny lot of girls would go to that. Girls trying to do Miss Jubb out of a job. Sally glimpsed their efforts. She had seen girls in dresses which they had made themselves. Poor mites! she thought. Paper patterns forsomebody twice their size, and bad calculations of the necessary reductions. Tape-measures round their own waists, and twisted two or three times at the back, which they could not see. Blunt scissors, clumsy hands, bad material.... It was a nightmare to Sally. She did not go far enough to imagine the despairs, the aching hands, the tears, which attended the realisation of an evening's botch. She was not really a very humane person. She had both too much imagination for that infirmity of the will, and not enough. She passed from dressmaking to the other subjects.
There was one that made her jump, so much did it seem to be named there for her own especial benefit. It was "Book-keeping." Sally was taken aback. She scanned the details. Two lessons a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, at eight o'clock. A disdain filled her. She would not be as the other girls. She would learn book-keeping. She would understand figures. Then she could help Gaga with precisely that work which he confessed himself unable to do. Sally memorised the details. It was enough; she was ready for anything. As the following Monday was the first night of the session she would be present then.
And so, her ambition mounting once more to arrogance, Sally returned to bed and her mother, and bread and margarine, and the dingy room on the second-floor-back.
The book-keeping class was held in one of the ordinary classrooms, separated from others by high partitions of wood which were continued to the ceiling in panes of glass. The room was filled with forms and desks, but the class was so small that all those composing it (and there were fewer still after the first six lessons) were putinto the first two or three rows of desks. The teacher was a little sandy man who made well-trodden jokes and talked in a wheezy voice well suited to his appearance. He used the blackboard, and stood upon tiptoe to scrawl upon it in a large handwriting. That was at the beginning. Later, methods developed; but for the present Sally and the others were merely initiated into the first movements of the difficult craft. With amazement she began to learn the mysteries of the signs "Dr." and "Cr.", the words "Balances", "carried forward", etc. and the meanings of such things as ruled diagonal lines. It was to her like the game of learning chess, and she had the additional pleasure of knowing that with the solution of each problem she was adding appreciably to her knowledge, and to a knowledge which henceforward would not be wasted, as she could turn it, as of all things she most desired, to immediate use. Madam's accounts would no longer be a source of trouble or bewilderment to her. She knew very soon that they would be mere child's play to her instructed intelligence.
From the teacher and the lessons, Sally turned to her fellow pupils. There were about twenty of these, the sexes almost equally represented, but with the girls in a slight majority. One or two of the young men were pale and spectacled, and so they did not interest her. The girls were generally of a higher class than her own, were obviously already employed as clerks in offices, and were rather older than herself. They were the daughters of tradesmen or clerks, and all lived at home in the better streets of the neighbourhood. They were neatly dressed, but she was easily the smartest of the audience. The other girls looked at her hair and her complexion, and then at each other; and a feud began. Sally was consoled by the evident interest of the young men, who often cast glances in her direction. She sat demurely, as if unconscious,but in her wicked heart there was glee at the knowledge that this same young person Sally, once the despised companion of May Pearcey, had in a year attained such new charm as to be attractive to these young men. She shrugged her shoulders at the thought of it. Had she been an onlooker she would have been amused or cynical. As she was the cynosure of the emotional eye of the whole class she could view the natural processes of all such gatherings with satisfaction. Her shrugs were for the respectable and alienated girls, who were like sparrows chattering over a brilliant intruder; to the young men she offered an air of imperviousness to their cajoleries which made her seem to at least three of them a young person whom it might be pleasant and titillating to know. The general arrangement of feelings towards her was evident at the third lesson. By the fourth it had taken a quite definite form. She had exchanged conversation with the three men: she had smiled provokingly at the girls. The girls mentioned her at home, and to their friends; the young men did not mention her to anybody.
The men were all older than she, were in employment, and although some of them were still at home the majority of them were in lodgings in Holloway, were lonely, and were desirous of improving their positions. This was the case with Sally's three admirers. Of the three, her immediate favourite, because he most nearly resembled Toby in physical type, was a thickset dark young man with a budding black moustache and polished eyes and a strong pink upon his cheekbones. But after she had looked at him a few times she decided that he had Jewish blood, and Jews were among her aversions. So, although his name was Robertson, she passed him over in favour of a tall, rather bony fair youth of about three and twenty with smooth hair and a lean, conceited humorousface. He had assurance, which she adored, and his great length made it queer to be talking to him, because she had to look high up to see his face. He always wore a light-coloured tweed suit, and a knitted tie of about ten different colours, and his aquiline nose and jaunty manner gave him an air of knowingness which she much appreciated. He was a stockkeeper in a publishing house, and came from the South of England. His voice was light in tone, and he had a delightful burr. This young man, Harry Simmons, became her friend and soon walked part of the way home with her after each lesson. He talked politics to her, and explained all sorts of things which she had never before known. He told her how books were made, and how they were delivered unbound in great bales; and when she said "a book" meaning "a paper," he corrected her. Sally liked him. Of the three men she now knew well he was the best-informed. Accordingly she learnt more, intellectually, from him than from either of the others. He quickly fell in love with her, which was an added pleasure; and she once or twice let him kiss her, without promising anything or revealing the existence of Toby. She never kissed Harry in return, a fact which she cherished as a proof of her innocence. But she liked him very much, and told him more about herself than she had ever told anybody else. And as there is nothing like the use of such care and such flexible and uncertain kindness, when it is not calculated, for tantalising a young man who is agreeably in love with a young girl, Sally had a new delight, a new self-flattery, to cosset. The affair did not become very desperate in Harry's case—he was too conceited, and he knew the rules of the game too well—and at length it subsided normally; but it lasted pleasantly and instructively enough for perhaps four months, and the memory for both was one of smiling amusement,untempered by chagrin. Sally's one dread in the whole course of her friendship with Harry was a dread lest Toby should see them together. That Harry should see her with Toby she did not mind, because she could at any time have relinquished Harry without a qualm; but she loved Toby, and took care to keep secret from him on their infrequent meetings anything which might disturb his ardent thoughts of the little girl he had left at home.
So book-keeping went on. And so Harry went on. But by now Sally's interests had become many, for she was leading a busy life, and the difficulty of maintaining all her affairs at the necessary pitch of freshness and importance in her attention was increasing. She had to think of her work, of Madam and her now frequent fits of illness, of Gaga, of Miss Summers, of money, of Harry, of book-keeping, of clothes, and of her mother. Mrs. Perce she rarely saw during this period, because as Sally found new preoccupations she was bound to shed some of her old ones. She thought very nicely of Mrs. Perce; but she had at the moment no time for her. Mrs. Perce belonged to a passing stage, and had not yet a niche in the new one. Toby she saw still more seldom than anybody; but for Toby Sally's feelings underwent no obvious change. They developed as her character matured, but they did not alter. She embraced him, as it were, with her mind. Toby was somehow different from all the others. He was a part of herself. She did not know why, but he stood alone, whenever she thought of him, wonderfully strange, and strong, and enduring, as much Toby as she was Sally. She did not fear him. In some ways she despised him, for being so little pliable, so little supple in his way of managing the world. But she adored him as a man, and as a simple-minded baby who unerringly made her happy by his assurance, and flighted her by behaving as though she was somethingbelonging solely to himself. So long as she was confident that about nine-tenths of her life was outside the range of Toby's understanding, Sally enjoyed his delusion. It gave her such a sense of superiority that she relished her submission to his will in all trifles. She never felt that his absences made him a stranger. Rather, she felt that they increased and intensified her love and her desire for him. These at least were unabated—more ardent than ever. And the absences certainly made Toby all the more boisterously glad to see her whenever he returned from a voyage, and more demonstratively affectionate when they were alone together.
Madame Gala had returned to work and Gaga had gone into the country by the time Sally had joined her book-keeping class; and so that matter seemed to be in abeyance. The ease with which the fabric of her newest plan had been made to collapse discomfited Sally, who was always impatient for quick results; but she did not abandon hope. She believed in her star. She had seen very little of Gaga since their dinner. He had avoided her, with some tokens of slight constraint, although his greetings had been almost furtively reassuring. That alone would have made her believe that he had not forgotten his promise. Sally bade despair stand back. Always, hitherto, she had found her own level: she would do it again in this instance. She had the grit of the ambitious person who succeeds. Hers was not a vague or unwarrantable conceit: she would work for its fulfilment. It is the mark of the great.
While she was waiting, she one day received a letter from Toby, announcing his imminent arrival in London. He would wait outside Madame Gala's, and they wouldspend his leave together. It was now the beginning of October, and a fine Autumn had begun. The days, although rapidly growing shorter, were warm and cordial. They were better than the summer days. There was a crispness in the air, but there was no chill. Filled with pleasure, Sally wore her prettiest clothes that morning, and Toby was waiting in the sunshine at the corner of the street, and they met with light hearts. It was just one o'clock. At once they found a tea-shop, and had lunch; and then Toby sprang upon her a proposal that they should go to Richmond for the afternoon, and to Brighton the following day. He appeared to have plenty of money for both jaunts. He had planned them as soon as he knew the date of his arrival.
"O-o-o!" cried Sally. "Brighton! The sea! Will you take me out in a boat? Better not: I should be sick. Take me on the river this afternoon, instead. No: we'll just walk in Richmond Park. Ever been to Kew, Toby? The girls say it's lovely there. What's Brighton like? I went there once when I was a kid. Wasn't half fine. What d'you do there? Sit on the beach and throw stones in the water? We might paddle. Like to see me paddling? What time do we start?"
"Here, hold on," said Toby. They were walking to catch a Richmond omnibus. "You ask a lot of questions and don't wait for no answers. I say ... look at that young woman there.... Look at her!"
"Well?" demanded Sally. "It's only because her shoes don't fit. She doesn't know how to wear high heels. That's all it is. That frock cost a bit."
"Did it?" Toby jerked his head. "Well, you ought to know, I suppose. It's not as smart as yours."
"D'you like it, Toby?" asked Sally, eagerly. He had never said anything before about her clothes. She was suddenly sportive with pride in his interest.
Toby nodded. He had been betrayed into his speech of approval. It was not natural to him.
"It's all right," he nonchalantly said. "I've seen worse."
Sally shook his arm, provoked by a variety of feelings. She loved him to tease her. How strange! She felt a hundred years older than Toby, and yet she felt like a little girl. And when she was with him she did not have to mind her tongue, but could be as slangy and as natural as she pleased. Toby did not know any better. She had not always to be thinking, with him, of what a real lady might be expected to say. He was a relaxation for her.
"That's right," she said. "Flatter me. Make me get swelled head. Don't think of the consequences. Ladle it out. Tell me I look a little princess."
"No, Sally. I wouldn't do that," answered Toby, possessively. "I don't want you to get above yourself. You're a bit uppish as it is. Noticed it? Well, I have. And that's a thing I want to talk to you about."
"Oh," said Sally in a dangerous tone. "What is? Look, there's a bus!"
With Sally's nimbleness and Toby's muscle they obtained seats upon the top of the bus, and, seated together, resumed their conversation in low, grumbling tones. She first repeated her question with new aggressiveness, not at all deterred from the possibility of a row by her delight in Toby's company.
"About you," said Toby. "You see, smartness is all very well; but if you're going to be a sailor's wife you got to look where you're going. Now, your last letter. It said you was being a good girl, and taking evening classes—that's because I told you my aunt see you out with a fellow one night, coming from the schools. Now what the Hell's the good of evening classes to a sailor's wife; and whoisthis fellow aunt seen you with?"
"I suppose even a sailor's wife wants to know how to cook," remarked Sally.
"Oh cooking," grimly said Toby. "Does the fellow learn cooking, too?"
Sally was impudent. She was enjoying herself. She rejoiced that he should be so jealous and authoritative when she knew that she could always play with him.
"I don't know which fellow your aunt saw," she answered flippantly. "There's so many of them at the classes. I can't tell which it might be. Did she tell you what he was like?"